Gresham Sells Warings

Gresham Private Equity has sold Warings, a UK-based regional building contractor, to Bouygues Construction. No financial terms were disclosed, although Gresham reports that the deal generated a 4x return on its original investment. Warings has over 240 employees and annual revenue in excess of Gbp100 million.

PRESS RELEASE
Gresham Private Equity today announces that it has successfully exited Warings through the sale of the business to the French Group, Bouygues Construction. The deal has generated a return on investment of 4x.

Founded in the 19th century, Warings is a leading regional building contractor with over 240 employees and an annual turnover in excess of Gbp100m. Based in Portsmouth, the company undertakes new build and refurbishment projects in a wide variety of sectors across the south of England, from residential, healthcare and commercial to industrial, airports and defence. Partnerships and framework agreements account for more than half of Warings' annual turnover.

Gresham has helped Warings to realise its tremendous growth potential over the last nine years through the strong strategic and financial support provided to the management team. Gresham's philosophy of positive interest, encouragement and advice, whilst allowing the management team the freedom to invest and develop the business using its extensive experience, provided an impressive  framework for the enterprise to flourish.

Len Salter, Warings' CEO, said: “Joining Bouygues Construction is absolutely the right move for our business now. This alliance will secure the company's continued development as a major UK regional force, with the added dimension of being an integral part of one of the world's leading construction and services groups. We're very grateful to Ken Lawrence and the Gresham team for playing such a key role in the development of our business.”

Ken Lawrence, Partner at Gresham adds: “We are privileged to have been involved with Len Salter and the Warings' management team since our original acquisition of the business in January 1998. Through this partnership with management, the business has turned to many new ventures including positioning the business as a main framework supplier. It has also fulfilled its goal of becoming a leading player in the UK construction industry.”

Bouygues Construction's acquisition of Warings will further strengthen Bouygues Construction's presence in the UK and will complement the Group's London based subsidiary Bouyges UK.

Pascal Minault, Managing Director of Bouygues UK said: “The key determinant in choosing Warings were its shared corporate values, its excellent reputation and the quality of the management team, all of whom will stay in place. We see tremendous synergies with the opportunity to exchange best practices with our existing UK operation Bouygues UK, and to provide Warings with Group support to develop into new markets.”